


Borders

by aderyn



Series: Balsam and Birch [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Doctor John, Healing, Homecoming, John is a Very Good Doctor, M/M, Memories, Nature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 19:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Move to the wound, hold him.</p>
<p>John fixes a memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Snow Queen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/752877) by [faerymorstan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerymorstan/pseuds/faerymorstan). 



> For the lovely [Jude](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wiggleofjudas/pseuds/wiggleofjudas), thank you so much for inviting me into the wilds of your [Snow Queen ‘verse](http://archiveofourown.org/series/43371), magical fractured fairy tale-place that it is. This takes place after the [ “Breath”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/752877/chapters/1435199) and ["Bees" ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/752877/chapters/1438701)chapters of[The Snow Queen.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/752877/chapters/1406013)

The air’s gone cold overnight. Thimbleberry blistered in the hedge. A lick of red in the sumac, bindweed climbing the stiles;their roses, anemic, arterial, still blown.

Sherlock, thinking on a smuggler, slices his hand on a shattered beaker.

John catches his arm, stops. Blood drips like crimson, sugar and light, down the leaf of the maple.

“Hold still,” John says, “deeper than the last one.”

“Ten months to the day,” Sherlock says suddenly.

_Oh._ Since they walked out of the woods into the village, home again, heard the river, knocked at Molly's door, slept like her dead in their dusty bed, woke still dirty in their boots, studied each other in the cold dawn.

John leans close, meshes their hair at the roots.

A clean cloth. Focus for the mending.

Last night he chased one of Sherlock’s problems into a cellar and pinned it to the floor.

Sherlock picked at the strings, found indoles in fungi, cracked a code, said a cutting thing, stripped an apology from bitter bark.

_Oh._ John moves to the wound, holds him, later brushes against him, into him, the last leaves not keener or more tender.

“John,” Sherlock says, tastes balm.

Frees his arm, folds it.

John mends the hand, leaves a bruise, breathes into Sherlock’s mouth the heartsease, the live-forever at the garden’s borders.

**Author's Note:**

> [Viola tricolor, wild pansy, constancy, heartsease](http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/h/hearts10.html)   
> [Sedum purpureum, live-forever](http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/fieldbio/Wildflowers_Kimonis_Kramer/PAGES/LIVEFOREVER_PAGE_FINAL.html)


End file.
